16 comments:

Something has occurred to me: if EVERYONE will now be "insured", there will be a avalanche of working people who haven't had insurance who will now be inundating our hospitals, clinics, and doctor's offices. Millions of working class people live with all kinds of boo-boos and ailments that they haven't been able to afford to have treated...until now.

This could literally crash our entire health care system in a matter of days. Millions more patients, thousands LESS doctors and nurses (many will now jump ship). There is no way this tsunami can be paid for by the 50% of our population who cough up taxes.

Am I thinking this through correctly, or am I off the rails into tinfoil-hat land?

What people do not realize is that with "free" health care, people tend to use the system for their minor "boo-boos" as LR said. When the system is using so much of its resources for minor boo-boos, that inevitably means that major things do not get covered.

A couple of years ago the Premier of New Brunswick needed emergency heart surgery. He was flown to Florida. About the same time, the head of the Canadian Auto Workers Union in Windsor, Ontario had a heart attack and needed emergency care. He was taken to Detroit. Why? Because no where in Canada was there a hospital that could take such cases right away. Those two people had to be taken to the United States or they would have died before their number came up in the system.

Where will Canada send such cases now? How will those Americans who wanted Obama Care feel when treatment that used to be the norm is no longer available because the money is being used for, dare I say, birth control? And heaven help those who back a Hillary Clinton just to have her loose to a Barack Obama.

I saw a post on FaceBook yesterday that said something to the effect of "Wouldn't it be nice if health care was a readily available a guns?"

If you don’t have health insurance, that’s not unlawful, but failing to pay the penalty ["tax"] for not having it IS unlawful?

Welcome to the brave new world, where a “tax” applies to expenditures not made rather than income from wages or gains from investment. Almost as perfect as a VAT. If you have no income, why pay it from savings. If you have any. A more regressive tax is hard to imagine.

The Catch-22 of the SCOTUS’s illogical ruling is that the “tax” becomes a “penalty” (Civil Penalty) the moment it is not paid, per IRS regulations. A "demand" for payment is sent to you. If you do not pay from that, then a Civil Penalty is assessed, and is comprised of both an added penalty (up to 100%) plus interest. Civil Penalties are NOT discharged in bankruptcy. Been there, done that, have the tee-shirt ... on “taxes” I received no income basis for what-so-ever. The "zero balance due" statement from the IRS is framed on my office wall.

Pssst: This ruling also clearly reveals who gets the "tax payments" ... the Treasury /IRS, not health care providers. Therefore, it is a MAJOR step toward a single payer system because the government will control who gets paid what for what and when. Meanwhile, since it is in the general fund of the US, it can be spent elsewhere ... and will be.

Congress is emasculated (no formal budgets) and the Supreme Court is cowed (for to be illogical parsing terms from fantasy). Welcome to the New Autocracy.

Unless Republicans take both Houses and the Presidency in 2013, and actually DO something.

"At the beginning of his opinion, the chief justice pointedly notes that the court “do[es] not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders.” He repeats this sentiment at the opinion’s close, but with a subtle variation. “[T]he Court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the Affordable Care Act,” he writes, for “[u]nder the Constitution, that judgment is reserved to the people.” Could it be that the chief justice is asking the people to render a verdict on the leaders who wrote the law in the first place? In all events, they should take him up on it."

Of course, I may be just grasping at straws to ease the pain of what might have been the simple abrogation of his sworn duty to uphold the constitution by changing the unconstitutional mandate into a constitutionally authorized tax.

At this point I just do not know. Let's see what happens in November. I will pray for best, while expecting the worst.

Lyana, that artile is very chilling; there is the ideological mind at work. A suspected enemy joins the Forces of Good and Light, but, wait, he may have an ulterior motive! You can't be too sure with these people, you know how canny they are!

It's hiariously sad. Even as they completely triumph and change the U.S. at a fundamental level, they are still seeing enemies all around them.

Kept very plain and simple, Roberts and the Court made the semantic fallacy parsing penalty versus tax. Under any reading of IRS code today, it is a "penalty" ... for non-performance. Period. It will double and gain interest charges if one fails to perform once notified by IRS demand for payment. It starts off a civil penalty, but can quickly turn to a criminal penalty if the filer gives evidence of intent to not pay.

Any way this ruling went, sorry to say, it speeds along the move to a federal single payer health care system. Cloward & Pivens 101. Collapse something to take it over. Create the future crisis that enables you. Design to fail, and when you do fail, you can be the rescuer ... all hail the rescuer.

Stay tuned, but keep you hand over your ass. The assault will be from the rear.

Does the rather obvious lack of comment on this thread indicate we've given up? Has the federal steam roller flattened us? Or are we just in shock?

Here's some questions for today .... at what point is this "tax" to be applied? Annually with income tax filing? Or when you show up for medical care uninsured? How about the 100 Million or so who do not file, both the legal dependents and the tax evaders? Will the roughly 50% who pay no tax now pay a tax if they fail to buy government approved insurance?

I'm still in shock, but it's giving way to cold anger. I'm reading everything I can get my hands on, and the more I read the angrier I get. There is no "silver lining" to Roberts' betrayal that I can see. We have not "lost the battle but won the war". That's ridiculous! We've been knifed in the back by a smug and elitist a**hole who put the goodwill of the SC ahead of the laws he is supposed to narrowly interpret. In doing so, he has rendered the SC a political body, not the judicial branch of the "checks and balances" system penned by our founders. I'm fuming.

Now what? Well...I think it's imperative that we support VERY conservative candidates for the House and Senate, and do it loudly...angrily even. We should stop playing nice, and start shouting down the Marxist howler monkeys on the left; if they throw an egg, we throw a fricking refrigerator back at them. No apologies!

Aridog, I'll bet that the working "poor" will have that penalty sucked right out of their Earned Income Credit and other tax-time gov't giveaways. The "lazy" will continue to live on the gov't teat, with ALL of their "insurance premiums" subsidized by taxpayers. No tax for them doncha know. Will the medical system refuse to treat tax evaders? Probably...unless they're in a protected class of people.